Shared Shelf releases V. 1.0 with in-demand new features

Byron Company | Ships, Cunard Line, S.S. “Umbria”, ca. 1897 | Museum of the City of New York

Artstor is pleased to announce the release of Shared Shelf 1.0. The most recent version of Artstor’s digital media management software includes three important new features: work record functionality, media batch-replace capability, and the addition of media URLs in Excel exports.

Shared Shelf is an enterprise-wide media management solution that enables institutions to catalog efficiently and consistently, make collections accessible to a targeted audience, and keep files safe. With Shared Shelf 1.0, users can now create work records and automatically copy all their data to multiple files in a manner compliant with VRA Core 4 metadata schema; replace media files in bulk without modifying data records; and generate a shareable URL linking to a media file within a Shared Shelf project by exporting selected data records to Excel.

Artstor began the Shared Shelf initiative in 2009 to enable institutions to combine images created by individuals, those held by the institution, and those in Artstor’s database without the need for local infrastructure. Since then, Shared Shelf’s capabilities have expanded substantially, including the capacity to manage not only images, but audio, video, and documents in many formats; the ability to export to Open Access environments, including Omeka sites, DPLA, and Shared Shelf Commons (a library of digital media contributed by Shared Shelf subscribers); and the ability to customize cataloging fields and screens and assign role-based permissions and restrictions.

Shared Shelf has been developed in collaboration with nine institutions: Colby College, Cornell University, Harvard University, Middlebury College, New York University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Miami, Yale University, and the Society of Architectural Historians. Today, the software service is used by more than 100 colleges and universities, including the University of California Berkeley, University of Ottawa, and Rhode Island School of Design.